Noontime Web Video Revitalizes Lunch at the Desk

From The New York Times - In cubicles across the country, lunchtime has become the new prime time, as workers click aside their spreadsheets to watch videos on YouTube, news highlights on CNN.com or other Web offerings.

The trend — part of a broader phenomenon known as video snacking — is turning into a growth business for news and media companies, which are feeding the lunch crowd more fresh content.

In some offices, workers coordinate their midday Web-watching schedules, the better to shout out punch lines to one another across rows of desks. Some people gravitate to sites where they can reliably find Webcasts of a certain length — say, a three-minute political wrap-up — to minimize both their mouse clicks and the sandwich crumbs that wind up in the keyboard. | Read full article

Nokia predicts 25% of entertainment by 2012 will be created and consumed within peer communities

From Nokia - Nokia identifies Circular Entertainment as a coming trend as consumers get collaborative

Espoo, Finland -- Up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. This phenomenon, dubbed 'Circular Entertainment', has been identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment.

The study, entitled 'A Glimpse of the Next Episode', carried out by The Future Laboratory, interviewed trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles signposting emerging entertainment trends. Combining views from industry leading figures with Nokia's own research from its 900 million consumers around the world, Nokia has constructed a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.

"From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia. | Read full article

Online Display Ad Market To Hit $8.6 Billion, Yahoo Will Dominate

From Online Media Daily - GET READY TO PAY MORE for both premium and remnant display ad inventory. JP Morgan is forecasting the U.S. graphical ad market to hit nearly $8.6 billion this year--a 20% increase from 2007, with much of that cash flow being driven by costlier CPMs. What's going to fuel the price spike? According to analyst Imran Khan, the 4% growth in CPMs will stem from a cocktail of factors, including less abundant (and possibly devalued) offline inventory, improvements in behavioral and geographical targeting, and the increased use of ad exchanges.

Khan said that local broadcast and cable inventory will be "tight" in 2008, as presidential campaign ads will absorb many of the available spots, and the increasingly scattered TV market will contribute to more ad dollars shifting online. And we expect newspapers to continue to bleed circulation and ad revenues to the Web.

Meanwhile, Web publishers will get better at monetizing their inventory via improved targeting, migration to ad exchanges and sites like social networks increasing the number of ads per page. In 2007, some 83% of graphical inventory was sold for less than $1/CPM, according to Khan--so if a publisher improves its yield even by a few cents, it can have a tremendous impact on revenues. | Read full article

Scripps Launches Web Site For Shuttered Newspaper

From Media Daily News - IN WHAT MAY BE A first for American newspapers, a new Web site is being launched to continue the reporting of an expired print newspaper--The Kentucky Post, closed by E.W. Scripps at the same time as its sister publication, The Cincinnati Post. In another twist, the new Web site--KYPost.com--will be hosted by WCPO-TV, a Scripps television property in Cincinnati, drawing heavily on the station's video news for online content. The ad-supported site will focus on breaking local news, traffic advisories, sports scores and schedules, and weather in northern Kentucky communities, including user-generated content. It will be directed by managing editor Kerry Duke, previously the project editor for the paper's print edition. | Read full article

In Restless Pursuit of Craigslist’s Success

From The New York Times - MICROSOFT tried. Google tried. Now it’s eBay’s turn to see if it can dethrone the Web’s most spectacularly successful underdog, Craigslist.

The Kijiji unit of eBay, a free classified ads service covering 13 countries online, was introduced in the United States in late June, and has already achieved modest success in some important markets, including New York. Its vice president and general manager, Jacob Aqraou, said it would market itself far more aggressively in 2008, and was further refining its service in hopes of putting a dent in Craigslist’s huge market-share lead. | Read full article

On eBay, Some Profit by Selling What’s Free

From The New York Times - While scouring eBay for interesting Christmas presents a while back, I found and bought a DVD of a film made in 1954 about my home town of Doylestown, Pa. After it arrived I went searching for more information about it — and found the entire film, available as a free download from the nonprofit Internet Archive.

It turned out that the eBay seller had simply downloaded the movie file, burned it onto a DVD and stuck it in the mail. And he was doing the same with a wide range of other public-domain material: military truck manuals from World War II, PowerPoint presentations on health matters from government doctors, vaudeville shorts from the late 1800’s. | Read full article

Netflix Partners with LG to Bring Movies Straight to TV

From The New York Times - Netflix, the DVD-by-mail company with more than 7 million customers, has a new strategy that may one day make those red envelopes obsolete.

The company wants to strike deals with electronics companies that will let it send movies straight to TV screens over the Internet. Its first partnership, announced Wednesday night, is with the South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to stream movies and other programming to LG’s high-definition televisions.

The partnership will extend a novel feature from Netflix, announced a year ago, that allows paying subscribers to watch any of 6,000 movies and television shows on its Web site free. But that service can only be accessed with a personal computer.

Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, said he hoped to strike other such deals and that Netflix would soon be viewed as a movie channel that might appear on a myriad of devices. | Read full article

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

From The New York Times - Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.

Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites. | Read full article